Tamara L. Kaiser

Discernment Counseling

Sometimes when a couple seeks therapy one or both
partners may seriously be considering breaking up or
taking a time out but are not sure that this is the best
path. In this case, I offer a process called
Discernment Counseling that is designed to help couples in
this situation. This gives couples a chance to slow down,
take a breath, and look at their options for the
relationship.

If this is your situation, I will help you decide whether
to try to restore your relationship to health, move toward
breaking up, or take a time out and decide later.
The goal at this point is not for you to solve your
relationship problems, which would be the goal of couple therapy, but to see if they are solvable. I
will work to help you to gain clarity and confidence about
which direction you take, based on a deeper understanding
of your relationship and its possibilities for the future.

The most important work will occur in one-to-one
conversations with me, recognizing that each individual is
starting out from a different place. That is,
typically one of you is “leaning out” of the relationship
and not sure that regular couple therapy will work,
while the other is “leaning in,” that is, interested in
rebuilding the relationship. By meeting individually with
me, each of you will feel safe to explore all of what you
are thinking and feeling without needing to be concerned
about how your partner is reacting to you. In this
scenario, I simultaneously respect your reasons for
wanting to break up and try to open up the possibility of
restoring the relationship to health. However,
even though we are meeting largely individually, unlike in
individual therapy, you will come in as a couple
and will spend some time during each session talking
together with your partner and me.

This process emphasizes the importance of each of you
seeing your own contributions to the problems and the
possible solutions—something that will be useful for you
in future relationships, even if this one ends.

Discernment Counseling is a short-term process, typically
taking about 5 sessions. If possible, the first
session is 2 hours and subsequent ones are 1.5
hours. This may not be possible if you are using
your insurance and your plan doesn’t cover longer
sessions. In that case, the process will take a
little longer.